Generally, an image forming device is provided with a toner recovery unit which retrieves waste toner which has not been transferred from a photoreceptor drum to a recording medium at a transfer process. This type of toner recovery unit is detachably installed to the device body, and, when maintenance is being performed, if the amount of toner which has been retrieved has reached a certain constant amount, then the toner recovery unit is removed from the device body and exchanged.
As disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication 2005-77513, there is one prior art type of toner recovery unit which includes a waste toner recovery vessel, a fixation lever, a shutter, and a biasing spring. The waste toner recovery vessel stores waste toner. The fixation lever selectively fixes the waste toner recovery vessel to the device body. The shutter opens and closes an discharge outlet on the device body for the waste toner. And the biasing spring biases the shutter from its opened position towards its closed position.
When the waste toner recovery vessel is pushed into the device body, the shutter is shifted from its closed position to its open position against the biasing force of the biasing spring. And, at an discharge outlet of the device body, the waste toner recovery vessel is fixed by the fixing lever to the device body, with an intake aperture of the waste toner recovery vessel opposing the discharge outlet.
However, with the toner recovery unit disclosed in the Patent Document, when installing the waste toner recovery vessel to the device body, it is necessary to perform the operation of fixing the waste toner recovery vessel with the fixing lever while pushing the waste toner recovery vessel against the resistance of the biasing force of the biasing spring, and there is the problem that this task is complicated and troublesome.
Moreover, since the intake aperture is not provided with any shutter, it is easy for waste toner stored in the reservoir unit to spill out from the intake aperture when the waste toner recovery vessel is taken off from the device body.
The object of the present technology is to provide a toner recovery unit and an image forming device with which, along with it being possible to perform the task of fitting a reservoir unit which stores waste toner to the device body in a simple and easy manner, it is also possible to prevent leakage of waste toner out from the reservoir unit.